WW News Service Digest #232
1) Why 7 Texas prisoners risked their lives to escape
by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
3) AIDS & Racism: The role of profits
by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
4) Rising anger hits Pentagon's DU use
by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
5) U.S. shift on anti-Iraq sanctions?
by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
6) WBAI: The coup on Wall Street
by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
TEXAS HELL-HOLE:
WHY TEXAS 7 PRISONERS RISKED THEIR LIVES TO ESCAPE
By Gloria Rubac
Houston
It's probably fair to say that a majority of the 700,000
women and men in Texas prisons or under the supervision of
the state understood why the Texas Seven escaped from the
state prison system in December.
While the national media reported on every detail of this
dramatic prison escape, they virtually ignored the
prisoners' stinging criticism of the state's criminal
justice system when they finally surrendered.
The seven men sneaked out of a maximum-security prison on
Dec. 13 and remained at large for 42 days. Before the last
two would surrender to authorities in Colorado, they
demanded a live television interview in which they
criticized the Texas criminal justice system.
"The judicial system in Texas has really gone to the pits,"
said Donald Newberry, one of the Texas Seven. "We're
receiving 99 years for a robbery of $68 and nobody was
injured. They're giving kids so much time that they will
never see the light again. Their life is gone.
"Now all they are is a roach in a cage. Things have to be
changed; there has to be more rehabilitation in the system
down there. You know, I couldn't even go to college. Where's
the rehabilitation when you can't even help yourself?"
Partrick Murphy told a television reporter he wanted people
to be more aware that there is definite wrong within the
penal system of Texas.
One of the Texas Seven killed himself rather than go back to
prison.
WHAT GOES ON IN TEXAS?
Texas prisons are hell to do time in, or to await execution
in.
As death-row prisoner Michael Sharp said before his
execution, many of the guards "think it is their patriotic
duty to torture and brutalize prisoners."
At this moment, 13 death-row prisoners have issued an urgent
appeal for help. They have been put on an indefinite
lockdown with no visits, no commissary/hygiene purchases, no
stamps, no hot food, no recreation time--and no word when
this will end.
Guards are reportedly gassing prisoners. And in retaliation
prisoners are throwing feces and urine on the guards and are
flooding the runs with raw sewage.
Prisoners are being thrown down on concrete floors while
handcuffed. Gerald Tigner's head was busted open and Rick
Rhoades was punched in the back of his head, the men
reported.
In a desperate letter to the Texas Death Penalty Abolition
Movement in Houston, one of those on lockdown says: "HELP!
HELP! HELP! I beg you to contact the media and attorneys and
those concerned with cruel and unusual conditions at the
Terrell Death Camp.
"There is a fast-worsening and volatile situation here
which, absent prompt outside investigation and intervention,
will likely get some prisoners or guards or both seriously
injured or killed."
The Abolition Movement has begun a campaign of calling
prison officials, politicians and the media in an attempt to
force scrutiny on these abuses by guards and officials.
LONGSTANDING INHUMANE CONDITIONS
Last year on Feb. 21, prisoners Ponchai "Kamau" Wilkerson
and Howard Guidry took a guard hostage on death row at the
Terrell Unit for two days. They wanted to protest the
horrific living conditions for all death-row prisoners, who
are housed in 6-x-10-foot cells with no human contact unless
they are allowed a visit.
In November 1998, Wilkerson and seven others on death row
attempted to escape. Six were captured in a hail of gunfire.
Martin Gurule managed to escape but his body was found
floating in a river near the prison a week later.
Ever since a ruling in 1981, Texas prison officials have
been trying to get out from under the supervision of the
federal court. That decision resulted from a historic
lawsuit filed by prison activist David Ruiz and six other
prisoners that in 1979-1980.
During the last 20 years, even though many changes have been
forced on the system, racism, abuse and violence by guards
still run rampant.
Even though most aspects of prison life are no longer under
federal supervision, Texas' super-max prisons are still "the
worst in the country," according to prisoners' attorney
Donna Brorby.
Texas conditions are worse than the notorious Pelican Bay
Special Housing Unit in California, Brorby stated.
Texas prisons are run by a state that has no uniform
indigent public defender system; a state that has upheld
convictions for capital murder even when a defendant's
lawyer slept through the trial, was using drugs or kept
leaving the court room to put money in a parking meter.
Texas is one of only four states that provide no state
funding for indigent defense. Last legislative session, both
houses passed a bill providing for indigent defense, but
then-Gov. George W. Bush vetoed it.
Fugitive Newbury told a television anchorperson: "I had to
threaten to beat up my own attorney so I could get another
attorney because my first attorney spent three months and
hadn't even come to talk to me. What kind of judicial system
gives you a defense that won't even show up?"
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Feb. 22, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
WHILE AIDS KILLS MILLIONS WORLDWIDE:
DRUG GIANTS, U.S. GOV'T GUILTY OF RACISM, GENOCIDE
By Preston Wood
While the global AIDS epidemic continues to spiral out of
control and millions suffer and die, U.S. and European
pharmaceuticals that hold patents on effective AIDS drugs
have engaged in a feeding frenzy of profits.
When pressed about the stranglehold of the giant
pharmaceuticals, an unidentified U.S. trade official
recently stated bluntly that the economic considerations of
global markets outweighed any call for a global humanitarian
response to the AIDS holocaust. is not about health," he
said. (Feb. 3 New York Times)
Cipla, Ltd., a company in India that is a major manufacturer
of generic drugs, has now offered to supply triple-therapy
drug "cocktails" to agencies in Africa striving to set up
programs to prevent and treat AIDS. The price per patient
will be only $350 per year.
By contrast, the usual cost for these treatments in the U.S.
is $10,000-$15,000 per year. This outrageous price is
virtually unattainable for poor and oppressed people.
"This is the way to break up the stranglehold of the
multinationals," said Dr. Yusuf K. Hamied, chairperson of
Cipla.
The lives of tens of millions of Africans are at stake.
Seventeen million Africans have already died as a result of
AIDS or AIDS-related infections. Recent UN studies confirm
that over 25 million Africans are currently infected with
HIV. Millions more will become infected unless the epidemic
is brought under control through a comprehensive global
effort.
Meanwhile, health-care activists in the U.S. are expressing
alarm about the rising incidents of AIDS infection in this
country.
A study conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention in Baltimore, Dallas, Los Angeles, Miami, New
York and Seattle found recently that 30 percent of young,
gay Black men are infected with HIV.
The study found that in the U.S., 12.3 percent of all gay
and bisexual men aged 23 to 29 are HIV positive. Fifteen
percent of Latino, 7 percent of white, and 3 percent of
Asian gay and bisexual men are currently infected.
Of those infected, only 29 percent knew they were infected
and less than 25 percent were receiving treatment.
In spite of these shocking figures, the new Bush
administration moved quickly to close federal offices on
AIDS and race relations. After a firestorm of public
outrage, the administration stated that the offices would
not close, but failed to articulate any real commitment to
fighting AIDS or pursuing policies to eliminate racism.
Claudia French, executive director of AIDS Action--an
education and lobbying group--stated, "We are baffled by
doublespeak from the White House. It sounds like they are
effectively closing it, but not saying it."
Moving swiftly to define the character of his new
administration, Bush's first major policy announcement was
the denial of U.S. aid to family-planning organizations
abroad that inform women about medical options, including
abortion.
This vicious attack on women everywhere is a death sentence
for millions of children who will be born infected with HIV.
The Bush policy will result in not providing AIDS education,
abortion counseling, condoms or other forms of contraception
to women around the world. Part of the human tragedy of the
global AIDS epidemic is the millions of children who are
AIDS orphans and who are infected with HIV.
AIDS & THE PROFIT SYSTEM
Why has this crisis come so far? Why have so many died?
The answer lies in the nature of the economic system that
still dominates the globe. Global capitalism continues to
strike out everywhere to expand its markets. Built-in laws
of capitalist expansion predominate over all concerns of
human well-being and health.
While governments around the world--from Brazil to Thailand
to the African continent--and inner cities in the U.S. are
reeling from this health emergency, U.S. and European
pharmaceuticals are reaping obscene and criminal profits.
By maintaining a stranglehold on patents for new and
effective AIDS treatments, millions are being denied a
chance to live out their lives with the most effective
treatments available. All in the name of corporate profits.
With the help of Al Gore, Bill Clinton, and now George W.
Bush, giant drug firms like Bristol-Myers Squibb, Glaxo-
Wellcome, Boerhinger Ingelhim and others have fought to
defend their ability to make billions in profits from the
suffering of people around the world.
Former Vice President Gore, for instance, acted as point
person for these drug giants by putting pressure on the
government of South Africa to keep it from going ahead with
a plan to impose compulsory licensing on drugs so that
others could make them more cheaply.
In a related effort to undermine the huge drug companies,
Brazil recently infuriated the big cartels and their
flunkies in Washington by beginning to manufacture the anti-
AIDS drugs.
Through frantic lobbying and massive campaign donations, the
giant pharmaceuticals are determined to stop this precedent.
The U.S. filed a complaint against Brazil with the notorious
World Trade Organization in an effort to maintain its
monopoly on the life-saving drugs.
Brazil suffers from a high rate of HIV infection--160,000
infected--but is seen as a model of prevention and treatment
with extensive social programs. The current rate of
infection in Brazil is only 0.6 percent.
The Brazilian Health Ministry charged that the U.S.
complaint puts at risk its renowned AIDS program that
distributes the drugs free to all.
Ultimately, the AIDS crisis even does harm to the capitalist
class around the world. The disruption of business as usual,
the crisis of care and the creation of millions of orphaned
children ultimately cost billions.
In large part it is the racism that is such a component part
of capitalism, as well as discrimination against gays and
bisexuals, women and all those who are afflicted with this
disease that has contributed to the epidemic and allowed it
to continue to burgeon out of control.
Bringing an epidemic such as AIDS under control requires a
comprehensive, centralized plan that includes non-
competitive research for a cure, real prevention, education,
and services and care for those who are suffering.
Because imperialism as a system is bound to the laws of
expand or die, where profits rather than social needs
prevail, the ultimate solution lies in the struggle here and
abroad against the corporate plunderers. These forces,
working together, will eventually bring the terrible crisis
called AIDS to an end.
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Feb. 22, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
RISING ANGER HITS PENTAGON'S DU USE
By Paddy Colligan
Thousands of people in Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal
have recently protested the Pentagon's use of depleted-
uranium weapons in Europe. They charge that DU is the cause
of a cancer epidemic among European NATO troops who occupied
Bosnia and Kosovo, where the U.S. used DU-enhanced weapons.
The Labor Center of Athens called thousands to Athens,
Larisa and Karditsa in Greece Feb. 8 and 9 to demand that
NATO be abolished, its bases and nuclear weapons expelled
from the region, and Greek soldiers returned from
Yugoslavia. Under pressure from soldiers worried about the
health risks of DU, the Greek government has declared that
none of its troops will be forced to stay in Kosovo.
A demonstration was called by the Clark Tribunal in Italy--
the group that organized the anti-NATO war crimes tribunal
after the war against Yugoslavia. At this Feb. 3 protest,
delegations of soldiers and organizations called for the
guilty to be removed from power and held responsible for
crimes against the Balkans' people and Italy's soldiers
In Brussels, Belgium, a conference titled "Uranium: The
Victims Speak" will start March 1. It will bring together
soldiers contaminated by DU with people "whose countries
have been turned into nuclear and chemical waste dumps."
They will strategize with anti-NATO forces about building
opposition to DU.
DU IN IRAQ, VIEQUES, BALKANS
Where DU has been used--southern Iraq, Bosnia, Kosovo, and
bombing ranges in Vieques, Okinawa and south Korea--it
presents an enormous and continuing danger for civilians
living in the contaminated areas.
There has been a documented increase in the rates of
childhood leukemia and rare forms of cancer in southern
Iraq, where the U.S. used huge amounts of DU materials
during the 1991 Gulf War.
A lawsuit challenging the U.S. Navy's use of Vieques--a
small island off the coast of Puerto Rico--as a bombing
range is demanding restitution for people living on the
island. Over a third of the island's 9,000 inhabitants
suffer from serious illnesses and cancers that doctors have
linked to six decades of Pentagon bombing. DU weapons have
been tested there.
Lt. Gen. Boris Alekseyev, the Russian Armed Forces' top
environmental safety officer, has charged that in occupied
Kosovo, U.S. "soldiers are stationed in an uncontaminated
area that was not hit by a single bomb or missile containing
depleted uranium."
On the other hand, he said, "the Italians are serving in
areas where the bombardment with uranium-containing
munitions was the most intensive." Russian troops in the
area are being screened for signs of illness. (Kommersant,
Jan. 10)
The British government admitted "that thousands of British
troops serving in Kosovo were placed at risk from the deadly
effects of depleted uranium, the substance linked to Gulf
War Syndrome, after a health warning failed to reach
soldiers during the 1999 NATO conflict." (Guardian, Feb. 8)
It has been forced to agree to test any soldier who requests
it for DU exposure.
The World Health Organization appealed on Feb. 1 for $2
million to fund research into the effects of DU ammunition
in the Balkans and Iraq.
In West Concord, Mass., a demonstration in January targeted
Starmet, one of the two DU munitions producers in the United
States. Starmet, now bankrupt, is leaving behind a leaking,
unlined waste pit in a residential neighborhood where it
buried 400,000 pounds of depleted uranium from 1958 to 1985.
The bill for the cleanup is $50 million.
Both Lebanon and the Palestinian Authority continue to call
for international investigations of Israeli use of DU
weapons. Palestinian forces charged the Israeli military
with using DU weapons against the latest uprising. At first
the Israelis denied the charge. But they were later forced
to concede that they had used DU weapons in the past.
The anger sweeping Europe about depleted uranium has
provided an outlet for NATO rivals to raise their
differences with Washington. It also raises other problems
for the Pentagon: Will the women and men in the U.S.
occupation forces in the Balkans become concerned about
their own health? Will they question why they are risking
their lives for yet another ill-conceived U.S. military
adventure, cynically sold to them as a humanitarian rescue
mission?
Copies of an International Action Center leaflet informing
U.S. service people about DU's dangers and the events in
Europe, and asking them to investigate the dangers to
themselves and others, were distributed at a demonstration
against Plan Colombia at Fort Bragg, N.C., on Feb. 10.
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Feb. 22, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
U.S. SHIFT ON ANTI-IRAQ SANCTIONS?
By Richard Becker
An editorial in the Feb. 11 New York Times calls on the Bush
administration to "reinvent the rules for dealing with Iraq
by enlisting the aid of regional leaders in tightening the
arms embargo on Baghdad while simultaneously relaxing other
trade sanctions." What gives the Times' new position
significance is that it is considered the U.S. "newspaper of
record."
There are, moreover, indications that Secretary of State
Colin Powell, who played an integral and criminal role in
the 1991 Gulf War, is moving toward a similar position.
The editors point out that they have "strongly supported
Washington's efforts over the last 10 years," meaning the
U.S. war and sanctions blockade against Iraq. In fact, the
Times has been a staunch advocate of policies that have
killed a million-and-a-half Iraqis and devastated a once-
thriving developing country.
Clearly it is not human suffering that has motivated the
Times' call for a policy shift. In fact there is just one
remarkably bland reference in the whole editorial to the
enormous human cost, a throwaway line about "the hardships
on the Iraqi people that have accompanied the sanctions."
No, what is moving the Times and also possibly the
administration is the reality that the sanctions regime--
imposed and maintained by the UN Security Council at the
behest of the U.S.--is threatened with complete collapse:
"the array of sanctions that the Security Council imposed on
Iraq in the early 1990s has been rapidly weakening as Arab
and Muslim states grow impatient with the restrictions and
two permanent members of the Council, Russia and France,
press to ease Baghdad's isolation. Recent weeks have seen a
rapid deterioration. Commercial flights with uninspected
cargo have resumed."
In an understatement of stunning proportions, the editorial
snootily notes, "The continuing stalemate between Israel and
the Palestinians has added to Arab restiveness."
While couched in typical Times language, these statements
are admissions that U.S. policy in the Middle East is
confronting a crisis. Anger against Washington is running
very high. The combination of the genocidal sanctions
against Iraq, the continuing U.S.-funded and backed Israeli
repression of the Palestinians, and the massive U.S.
military occupation of the entire Gulf region has greatly
heightened anti-imperialist sentiment throughout the region.
The ascension of the blood-drenched racist Gen. Ariel Sharon
to the premiership of Israel can only further fuel this
anger. U.S. client regimes in the region could be
endangered.
Taken together, these are the factors behind the call for a
reformulated policy. That the call is being made at all is
evidence that the U.S., while the sole superpower, is not
all-powerful.
The Times is calling for what might be termed a "de-linking"
of economic from military sanctions. The editorial makes the
unprecedented admission that, "Currently, American diplomats
are holding up billions of dollars of imports needed for
civilian transportation, electric power generation, the oil
industry and even medical treatment because they could be
put to military as well as civilian uses."
Anyone who has traveled to Iraq in recent years can attest
that the list of held-up imports also includes water and
sewage treatment equipment and supplies. Iraq's inability to
import the goods needed to rebuild its shattered
infrastructure is the number one cause of death and illness
in that country today. Nearly all industrial goods are
labeled "dual-use," meaning potentially having both civilian
and military applications.
The Times hopes that a policy shift will "gain the
cooperation of other states in enforcing the arms embargo."
The sanctions, including an arms embargo, can only be
"enforced" by military means, by means of a military
blockade. A blockade is an act of war. Supporting the
continuation of any type of sanctions is thus support for
continuing the ongoing war against Iraq.
The objective of a shift in policy, according to the Times?
"Thwarting [Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's] ambition to
rebuild his military forces must remain the central goal of
American policy." To achieve this, says the Times, "General
Powell must try to reconstruct a united and effective front
against Mr. Hussein."
The real aim of U.S. policy is to maintain and extend its
control over the Gulf region and the Middle East as a whole.
Domination of this oil rich region means fabulous profits
and is a key factor in geopolitical hegemony.
No region of the world is more important to the oil-banking-
military interests that predominate within the U.S. ruling
class. Keeping Iraq and its people in a decimated state is a
key tactic in achieving the subjugation of the Gulf region.
Regaining its full sovereignty is not only fundamental to
Iraq's right of self-determination, it is also the necessary
pre-condition for Iraq to overcome the imperialist-created
humanitarian disaster which has afflicted the country and
its people for the past decade.
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Feb. 22, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
MUMIA ABU-JAMAL FROM DEATH ROW:
"WBAI: THE COUP ON WALL STREET"
By Mumia Abu-Jamal
[Information is the raw material for new ideas;
if you get misinformation, you get some pretty
fu---d-up ideas.
--Eldridge Cleaver, former minister
of information, Black Panther Party]
With late-night lock changes, and a phalanx of security
guards prowling the halls, the coup of WBAI-FM, the flagship
station of the Pacifica Network, has begun.
Popular veterans of the listener-supported station, like
program manager Bernard White and WBAI union shop steward
Sharon Harper (both producers of the morning "Wake Up Call"
show), received letters of termination at their homes
several hours before their shifts were to begin. WBAI
General Manager Valerie Van Isler, who, like White, was a 20-
year vet of the station, was similarly fired by Pacifica,
ostensibly for failing to accept a position at network
headquarters in Washington.
While these firings were attempts to remove, and thereby
install, management personnel, it was also an opening salvo
in a pitched battle designed to silence radical dissent, and
open the airwaves to the corporatization of WBAI.
If you want WBAI to become a nice, sweet, safe alternative,
like NPR, then do nothing. It will happen. If, however, you
want to continue to hear about the struggles of the peoples
of the world for liberty, for life, for dignity, as in East
Timor; or of the noble life and death struggle of the
Zapatistas in the mountains of Mexico; or of cases like the
slaughter of African immigrant Amadou Diallo; or of the
continuing human rights violations occurring every day in
the nation's burgeoning prison-industrial complex, then you
must fight for it, as you would fight for your very life, or
anything dear to you.
The great Frederick Douglass perhaps put it best when he
said, "Without struggle there is no progress." If the
various communities of New York and northern New Jersey
don't struggle for their vision of WBAI-FM, it will be gone.
It's as simple as that.
What's happening at 'BAI was attempted a year ago at KPFA-FM
in San Francisco. The people of the Bay Area rallied in
unprecedented strength--over 10,000 folks at one protest--
and backed the Pacifica board down. Listeners to 'BAI must
do no less!
In theory at least, the airwaves belong to the people. For
the last 40 years, the staff and local management of WBAI
have tried to make that theory in America a reality.
If you are thrilled by the no-holds-barred radio reporting
of "Democracy Now's" Amy Goodman, who is constantly
threatened and harassed by the Pacifica board for her
radical reporting, then fight for her.
For in fighting for her, you fight for the finest traditions
of WBAI, and against the corporationists who want to turn a
national resource into just another commodity.
To keep it raw; to keep it real, you've got to fight for it.
For info contact Concerned Friends of WBAI:
(800) 825-0055; (718) 707-7189; www.savepacifica.net.
Text (c) copyright 2001 by Mumia Abu-Jamal.
All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of the author.
